Grab your library tote bags -- we're just weeks away from the grand debut of the refurbished Morgan Library, on East 36th. After a three-year, $100+million renovation and expansion, the Morgan is set to re-open to the public April 29. Architecture folk are abuzz about Renzo Piano's additions to the original 1906 McKim, Mead & White structure, profiled glowingly in the Times this week.
Those robber barons didn't skimp on the collecting. Among the Morgan's literary highlights are "a number of exceptional documents handwritten or signed by influential figures in Western culture, including Elizabeth I, Marie Antoinette, Napoléon, Sir Isaac Newton, and Voltaire," along with the only surviving manuscript of Paradise Lost, transcribed and corrected under Milton's direction, Charles Dickens's manuscript of A Christmas Carol, the journals of Henry David Thoreau, plus manuscripts and letters galore from the likes of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, and John Steinbeck.
The Morgan boasts tons of visual art, too, including nearly 10,000 drawings from the 14th through 20th centuries -- da Vinci to Durer, Blake to Burne-Jones. Last year, the Morgan acquired the manuscript and illustrations for de Brunhoff's Histoire de Babar le petit elephant, including "the earliest plan for the Babar book (9 1/2 x 6 in.) with forty-four pages of pencil and watercolor sketches and the original text."
Online information on the Morgan's opening is skimpy, but according to last week's New Yorker, the "Masterworks From the Morgan" exhibit will showcase a Gutenberg Bible and Mary Shelley's annotated copy of "Frankenstein," among other treasures. In November, the Morgan announced that a week of festivities were planned for its opening, including appearances by Seamus Heaney, Edward Albee, and Pete Hamill. Stay tuned ...
To occupy your time while you wait, you might want to browse through the library's online gift shop -- this Bayeux Tapestry necktie would be just the thing to wear to the opening, no?
Thanks and a free library card to Maud for bringing up the topic of non-NYPL libraries none of us could recall the name of (she covered the collection earlier here) ... if anyone knows of any others in the area worth a visit, drop me a comment, please.
I wish I knew of more excellent libraries in the area...perfect lunch break fodder for those of us languishing in midtown, right? I admit to enjoying the good old NYPL mostly for its exhibits, and by that I mean mostly for an excuse to go be among books in the middle of the day. Thanks for the Morgan heads up. Personally, I can't wait!
Posted by: amy | April 12, 2006 at 10:02 AM
Well, if you're languishing in Midtown, 'tis nearly the season for the Reading Room to open back up in Bryant Park, right? The selection isn't exactly comprehensive, but that's a fair trade-off for a "library" that lets you drink coffee while you read!
Posted by: cm | April 12, 2006 at 10:52 AM
Very true. Even better? -- buy something new at Coliseum Books, bring book and coffee to BP, read in the sun, get distracted, scribble notes in the margins of book.
mmmmm
Posted by: amy | April 13, 2006 at 12:23 PM